International Poetry Competition

Prizes

FIRST PRIZE: £1,000, plus five year’s subscription to Acumen
SECOND PRIZE: £400, plus three years’ subscription to Acumen
THIRD PRIZE: £200, plus two year’s subscription to Acumen
SPECIAL PRIZE for best current subscriber’s entry: £100

Aditionally six highly-commended poets will receive £25 plus a subscription to Acumen and ten commended poets will receive a year’s subscription to Acumen.

Closing Date: Saturday 26th February 2021

 

THE WINNERS:

RESULTS 2021

 

1^st – 357                       At Iburndale Beck     Doreen Hinchliffe

2^{nd –} 380                       Looking up your past life on Google   Veronica Beedham

3^rd – 197                       Ancrene Wisse         Rosie Jackson

 

Acumen Prize:           Late Love       David Punter

 

Highly Commended Poems

164                  The Stillness in the Room         Julia Lewis

412                  The Eight Pheasants of Loddington     John Gallas

521                  Skip Paints the President’s Wounds      Samuel Prince

542                  Getting the Summer Clothes out of Storage      Lucy Crispin

608                  Language Therapy          Elena Croitoru

717                  The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary         Amanda Dalton

 

Commended Poems

134                  The Lesson        Patricia Leighton

143                  The Overlooked          Colin Pink

196                  Erasure      Rosie Jackson

231                  Ten Mothers    Robert Hamberger

251                  Stumble        Sharon Black

311                  Scrivener will not Plant Marigolds in the Mind.    Veronica Beedham

363                  Timewise     Doreen Hinchliffe

367                  Six Ways of Looking at Solanum Tuberosum   Helen Ashley

514                  The Winged Hare      Jean Atkin

595                  The Basement         Erica Jane Morris

 

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Entry Fees

£5.00 per poem or 5 poems for £20.

Current subscribers can enter one extra poem free (including those subscribing with the entry).

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The Judges

MARTYN CRUCEFIX
Martyn Crucefix’s recent publications are Cargo of Limbs (Hercules Editions, 2019), These Numbered Days, translations of the poems of Peter Huchel (Shearsman, 2019) and The Lovely Disciplines (Seren, 2017). O. at the Edge of the Gorge, was also published by Guillemot Press in 2017. Martyn has translated the Duino Elegies – shortlisted for the 2007 Popescu Prize for European Poetry Translation – and Sonnets to Orpheus by Rainer Maria Rilke and the Daodejing – a new version in English (Enitharmon, 2016). He is a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the University of Westminster. He blogs regularly on poetry, translation and teaching at http://www.martyncrucefix.com

MIMI KHALVATI
Mimi Khalvati was born in Tehran and has lived most of her life in London. She has published nine collections with Carcanet Press, including The Meanest Flower, shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize 2007, and Child:New and Selected Poems 1991-2011. Her awards include a Cholmondeley Award from the Society of Authors and a major Arts Council Writer’s Award. She is the founder of The Poetry School and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Her new collection, Afterwardness, is a PBS Winter Wild Card and a book of the year in The Sunday Times andThe Guardian.

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How to enter

Either:

1. By post: Download an Entry Form here, complete and return with your poem(s) and fee.
2. Online:
   1. Compete the Entry Form alongside, attach the file with your poems (If you are entering more than one poem, please put all poems on separate sheets in one Word file) , tick to agree to the rules and then click ‘send’.
   2. Pay the entry fee by clicking ‘Add to Cart’  for 1 poem or 5 poems. then click ‘Shopping Cart’  at the top of the page and checkout.

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Rules

1. Poems must be original, have a title, be unpublished or not accepted for publication. They should be written in English and not exceed 50 lines.
2. Each poem must be typed, single-spaced on one side of A4 paper which must not bear the name of the author or any form of identification. The titles of poems and name and address of the poet should be clearly listed on the entry form or a separate sheet of paper.
3. The entry fee is £5.00 per poem, or 5 poems for £20.00. Current subscribers to Acumen (including those subscribing with entry) can enter one extra free poem.
4. Receipt of entry will be acknowledged if a stamped, addressed postcard marked ‘Receipt’ is enclosed with postal entries.
5. A list of winners will be sent if a stamped addressed envelope marked ‘Prizewinners’ is enclosed with postal entries.
6. Copyright will remain with the author, but the organisers reserve the right to publish any of the winning or commended poems up to one year after the end of the competition.
7. The awards will be announced at a party in London (Covid 19 permitting). The winning poets will be notified in advance and invited to attend. All highly-commended poets will be invited to read their short-listed entry.
8. The judges’ decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into regarding the results. The poems will not be returned.
9. The organisers reserve the right to return poems and entry fees if the need arises.
10. Neither the judges nor organisers are eligible to enter the competition.
11. The judges will read ALL the entries.
12. Cheques/POs should be made payable to Acumen Publications and sent together with the poems and author’s details to:
    The Administrator, c/o 6 The Mount, Brixham, South Devon TQ5 8QY, UK. Envelopes should be clearly marked ‘Acumen International Poetry Competition’

E-mail entries to arrive by 6.00pm 26 February 2021